Across the Universe
by Pukkina
Summary: AU lyric narrative. Lisa is being punished for her actions aboard the red eye when she receives a surprising visitor...Thanksgivinginspired piece.


Author's Note: So…writer's block on my novel plus holiday excitement equals new Red Eye oneshot, apparently. Anywhozzle, enjoy, it's not meant to be taken THAT seriously, so don't get fixated on the horrible plot too much. AU, with the lyrics 'Across the Universe' by the Beatles, who are, of course, genius. In the story, Lisa didn't defeat Jackson on the plane, the pen, of course, never existed. Rather, he succeeded in having the Keefes killed. Anyway, I hope you like it, please review, and I'll try to update Do Those Things You Do shortly.

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_Words are flying out like  
endless rain into a paper cup  
They slither while they pass  
They slip away across the universe_

I watched as the solid rain slid down the foggy glass, soaking the outer surface and leaving a slick, slimy path as it trickled to the sill. I allowed my fingers to dance along the interior of the window, grazing the statuesque pattern of tears as they slid to their deaths on the grass, following the reflection of my face in the window. I spoke quietly to my father, unaware of what I was actually saying, but feeling the need to say something to break the silence, "Where's Mom?"

My father paused, and when I tore my eyes away from the window to look at him, he looked down, twisting a napkin in his lap. "She couldn't come," he muttered belatedly, his voice strained. I gazed steadily at the lines on his face, counting them slowly. Since when had he become so old? Joseph Reisert had never seemed one to age, one to follow time. He had always seemed so youthful and perfect, so unblemished. His flaws and maturity were clear to me under the bright halogen light that filtered down upon our rickety card table from the cracked ceiling light above. I looked up as a fly sputtered asleep, its wings failing as it died. "Her flight was canceled because of the storm. Eat your food, Leese." I peered down at my cold, lumpy mass of mashed potatoes and turkey, and then at his own plate. Untouched. Just as disgusting. The gravy lay in a puddle next to his meat, multicolored and obviously a byproduct of the grizzle from the dead animal.

It was raining that night, just like it rained the night of the last day of my life. The night that I lost myself to a sadistic, knife-wielding maniac. The night that I helped murder the entire Keefe family.

_Pools of sorrow waves of joy  
are drifting through my open mind   
Possessing and caressing me _

My cellmate sauntered past my table, a tray in hand as she followed a burlesque guard to her table. The words beneath her snakelike hiss were evident as she passed the table.

"Terrorist."

I felt angry, and not because of the insult. I'd been called a terrorist, a murderer, a psychopath, several times since my arrival at the Miami Dade Prison, and because I knew that the words were untrue, they did not phase me. What bothered me is that the vicious words were uttered in the presence of my father. I'd pleaded with him countless times, declared myself innocent an innumerable quantity. Yet there remained a doubtful hindrance over his countenance, disbelief etched over his rapidly aging skin. _I'm your daughter. You love me. I wouldn't kill a person. I was only trying to save you._

The guards announced that visiting hours were over, and my father rose a bit too quickly from his chair. I stared at his stomach, saddened by the missing stomach. His shirt used to protrude ever so slightly, dangling over his belt, but that is no longer. I knew that he no longer ate, that he no longer took pleasure in the small satisfactions of life. He's old. I made him old.

I rose along with my father, my knees cracking painfully under the stiffness I was accustomed to. I stepped towards him, the fabric of my jumpsuit rustling with the effort, and awkwardly encompassed him in a hug. Though he began to return the gesture, he faltered, his hands sliding onto my shoulders.

_J'ai guru deva om  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world _

Later, in my cell, I occupied myself with braiding the thin threads dangling from my jumpsuit. I found myself morbidly wishing that they were longer so that I could kill myself. I had twenty to life, after all, what was the point of holding out? I might as well go out in style.

I sighed, hating the holidays. Thanksgiving was pointless. What was there to thankful for? That I hadn't been given the death penalty? Or that Jackson hadn't been prosecuted and placed in the same jail as myself? I found myself wishing that he had been. At least then, it would be easier to murder him like I planned to. I looked up as a guard passed my cell, the silver on his belt buckle catching the light and sending it blindingly into my eyes.

_Images of broken light which  
dance before me like a million eyes  
That call me on and on across the universe_

I had been thinking about death a lot lately, not only what it would be like to die but why humans deserved to die in the first place. Why God could allow innocent children to be slaughtered by assassins with icy blue eyes and demeaning smiles. Why, after all this, I couldn't just die myself.

_Thoughts meander like a  
restless wind inside a letter box  
they tumble blindly as  
they make their way across the universe _

"You have a visitor, Reisert."

I raised my head from the tiny orange strands and shifted my thin body on the bed, watching as a guard came to a stop before my barred escape, escorting a tall, thin man. He murmured a few acknowledgements to the other man and left, leaving me alone to contemplate my insanity. _Could it really be…?_

"Happy Turkey Day, Leese," Jackson Rippner leaned casually on the bars, a smirk curling his lips upward like a backwards rainbow. "Saw your dad on the way in. He didn't recognize me, of course. Never had the pleasure of meeting him."

Speechless, I stood from my perch and raised a hand to Jackson's fingers, recoiling when I realized they were real. After all this time, all these weeks, of imagining his visits, he was finally—he couldn't be—he was here. He laughed, his voice husky and relatively cold. "You look good, Lisa. Captivity suits you."

I stared at him, dumbfounded. The darkness of the evening hallway casted an ethereal shadow over his young, charming face, and I stepped closer, inhaling his scent like a feral cat. He'd been chain-smoking, I could smell it on his breath and saw the residue on his teeth. I never would have imagined that Jackson smoked.

"Saw you at the trial. I didn't go, of course. Watched it on television. You spoke like a lawyer, eloquently. I'm surprised they convicted you. Sorry about that."

Finding my voice for the first time in five minutes, I cried savagely, "_Fuck you_!" as I grabbed hold of his jacket and shoved him brutally away from the bars.

Expecting him to leave or call a guard, I shrank back into my cell, running a hand through my unwashed, tangled auburn curls. He did neither. Instead, he snickered at my raspy diatribe, picked himself up, and straightened his impeccably clean jacket. "I'm glad to see that you haven't lost yourself, Lisa."

"Get out of my life, Jackson," I barked. "You ruined what little I had life. All of this—everything you put me through—this is all _your_ fault. You should be the one rotting away in a cell, not _me,_ I was doing fine, I was--"

Jackson raised a hand, halting my speech. "Whoah, whoah, Leese. I gave you a choice. You brought this upon yourself. And stop being so fuckin' melodramatic."

"Bastard. Nothing's gonna change," I sneered, tears coursing down my face for the first time since the flight. "Nothing's gonna change where I am, nothing's going to change my world. I'm in _jail,_ if you haven't noticed. Because of _you, _I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life behind bars. I'll never get married, or have children, or advance my career and it's all _your_ fault."

_J'ai guru deva om  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world  
Nothing's gonna change my world_

"You may be in jail, Leese, but seriously—are you really that pathetic that you believe there's nothing you can do about it?" Jackson rolled his eyes. His serious tone inflected with confidence gave me pause.

"What are you talking about, Jack?"

He smirked and held up what looked like a credit card. "Get your things ready, Leese. We're leaving." I spun wildly around the cell for several moments, searching for my purse, before I remembered that I had no belongings and his order was sarcastic.

"What do you mean, we're leaving?" I squeaked, my voice quaking. "I can't leave. And I wouldn't go with _you_, anyway. I hate you."

Exasperated, Jackson hesitated in his work. "Would you rather stay here?"

"No…"

"Then hurry up before I change my mind."

I waited anxiously as Jackson slid the card through the lock, then pushed open the door and pulled me out, his fingernails digging into my upper arm. "Ow—Jackson—how are you even able to do this?"

"Because I have money," he barked before urging me to keep quiet. He hustled me through the exit, where, in the evening shift, a solitary guard rested in a tipped-back folding chair. A wadded-up copy of _Us Weekly_ in his lap, he looked up as we passed, and his eyes met Jackson's for a brief moment before he nodded slowly.

A sudden thought entered my mind, the first sane one since I'd been admitted to this prison. _This is illegal. If you do this, you'll be a fugitive and wanted for the rest of your life._

I glanced up at Jackson, wondering if he was experiencing any repercussions similar to my own. Did he care that he was breaking state, federal, and international law to bust me out of prison? His face was stoic, his expression cool as always. Outside, in the fresh air that has never seemed more inviting or sensual, I paused, the movement causing Jackson's hand to tug on my sleeve.

"What, Leese?" he hissed irritably as he unlocked the door. "Hurry up; we have about three seconds before somebody notices that you're missing."

"I can't do this," I muttered, feeling my stomach sink wretchedly. "Jackson, I can't…"

"Too late now, Lisa," he interceded, pulling open the car door and giving me a light shove. Along with the finality in his words, the gesture proved strong enough to push me into the car, and I sank into the seat as Jackson climbed in on his own side. He started the car—a dark green Buick, a car that normally would make me want to fling myself off a cliff but today seemed gorgeous—but didn't pull out of the parking space, reaching behind his seat to extract a leather jacket.

"Put this on."

I found no need to question, remembering that I was clad in a bright orange jumpsuit, and pulled it over my shivering shoulders. I had forgotten how nippy Floridian evenings could be. As we drove away from the lumbering stone prison, I looked behind me, watching it grow steadily slower on the darkening horizon. I felt a massive weight lift from my shoulders, replaced by an ominous pit in my stomach, and turned to Jackson.

"Why did you rescue me?"

He did not avert his gaze from the road, keeping his balanced blue stare glued to the thick yellow line. "I promised I would steal you. I don't go back on promises, Leese. No matter how juvenile they may be. And you didn't deserve to be in jail."

"No," I responded wisely. "But _you_ did."

"I didn't kill anyone."

"Neither did I."

"I didn't say you did."

Recognizing his point, I fell silent, peering out the window. After several moments, I opened my mouth again, another question at the tip of my tongue. "What are we going to do?"

Jackson did not hesitate before replying, and his voice held a confident gait that I'm sure was a possession he'd owned his entire life. "I'm taking you back to my apartment. It's secure and untraceable, back in South Carolina, so the cops won't be able to find you. We're switching cars in Orlando, because by then I'm sure they'll have caught onto that poor bastard who took my cash. They'll have squeezed all the information they can out of him by then. And you can't refuse to come with me, Leese. Trust me, it's not romantic. Think of it as a business transaction. I'm compensating you for the grief I caused you on the flight, letting you hide out at my place until the police give up on your case."

"You know, busting me out of jail doesn't make up for ruining my life," I protested wryly, allowing the first smile since before the flight to creep up my face. "It just helps to remedy my current situation."

"I know."

_Sounds of laughter shades of life  
are ringing through my open ears   
exciting and inviting me _

I rested my head against the back of my seat, hooking on my seatbelt. I wondered vaguely, as I drifted into a dreamless sleep, whether Jackson's liberation was a sign of his affection. Did I care? I doubted it. Every ounce of animosity that existed towards Jackson still subsisted, and every bit as real, but it was diluted by the fact that he had risked his skin to save me from my hell.

The next few weeks, or months, or, God forbid, even _years,_ would be rough, living with a man so antagonistic, so conflictingly different than myself, but no longer, in my eyes, was Jackson a coward. I still hated him, naturally, but at least, this Thanksgiving, I was thankful for something.

"Jackson?"

"Yeah."

"I forgot to tell you earlier….Happy Thanksgiving."

He turned to me, our eyes meeting for the first time since he had arrived at the jail. He grinned, his lips as charming and his voice as casually cool as it had been in the airport restaurant.

_Limitless undying love which  
shines around me like a million suns  
It calls me on and on across the universe  
_

"Happy Thanksgiving, Leese."


End file.
